City Council Notepad: Henrietta Davis

City Councillor Henrietta S. Davis is looking to make Cambridge a walker's paradise.

That means everything from crosswalk safety to snow clearance at bus stops for her "model livable city."

"I have a vision of transforming Cambridge into the model pedestrian city," says Davis, chair of the council's Traffic and Transportation Committee.

Before last week's election, politcal pundits pointed to Davis' ninth-place finish in the 1997 council election as proof that her support base was weakening and that she might not survive for another term.

But survive she has. Not only that, but Davis increased her number-one vote total by more than 50 percent, from 926 in 1997 to 1470 this year.

Her campaign manager, Nate Hester, gave Davis live-in advice this summer.

Among the messiness of her campaign headquarters, Hester lived in her home during the summer and fall until the election.

"I try to beat [the messiness] back so I can have some space that isn't the campaign," Davis says.

With the strong showings of Davis and first-time council candidate Marjorie Decker, it looks like Cambridgeport voters showed out in force for this election.

Davis, who has lived in Cambridgeport for more than thirty years, says other major issues she will focus on in her third term on the council are affordable housing, development which retains Cambridge's neighborhood scale, traffic management, and open space.

She was an administrator at the Agassiz preschool near Porter Square in the late 1980s when she first considered running for office.

"I thought, Gee, I can do that," she says. "I really cared about the schools because I had kids [Daniel, now 19, and Aaron, 17] in the schools."

Davis was elected to the School Committee in 1988, a position she held until 1995.

She was a freelance journalist for National Public Radio and other organizations from 1975-85 and as a social worker and community planner from 1967-74.

"My professional background is different," she says. "It gives me a particular perspective about public service."

--Edward B. Colby